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Title [sv]
Själviska gener och dess evolutionära konsekvenser: en studie av spordödaren i svamp
Title [en]
Spore killer genomics: elucidating causes and consequences of a fungal meiotic drive element
Abstract [en]
The principle of natural selection implies that any entity in nature that exhibits variation, reproduction and heritability may evolve. Hence, although Darwin framed his theory of evolution by natural selection around individuals within species, selection may act on other units of the biological hierarchy, such as genes, cells, organelles, species or even species groups. Conflict arises when natural selection favors a unit at one level, despite being harmful at another level. One example of this phenomenon is the intragenomic conflict resulting from natural selection favoring a genetic element, so that it spreads in a population despite being harmful to the individual carrying it. There is now a growing awareness that conflicts arising from selfish genetic elements are important drivers for evolutionary change and innovation, and thus of crucial importance for genetic form and function. One class of selfish genetic elements is the meiotic drivers, also referred to as segregation distorters. These elements skew sexual transmission in their own favor, at the expense of other genes in the genome. Although meiotic drive is widespread in nature and has been identified in a wide range of eukaryotes, there is a profound lack of empirical insight into the evolutionary causes and consequences of this class of genetic element. This lack of knowledge is largely due to the difficulties in studying these elements and a lack of appropriate and tractable genetic models. In this project, we will study meiotic drive caused by the Spore killer elements of the fungus Podospora anserina. We will combine large-scale genomic analyses with theoretical and empirical investigations to study the evolutionary dynamics of this meiotic drive system, both on a short and a long evolutionary timescale. The project proposal consists of three specific objectives:I) To identify, and confirm by knock-outs, six Spore killer loci of PodosporaII) To measure the strength of Podospora Spore killers as meiotic driversIII) To investigate the turnover of Podospora Spore killers over evolutionary timeFungal spore killers are uniquely suited to the study of selfish genetic element function and its role in eukaryotic genome evolution. A major focus of research in my group is the evolution of spore killers in the model taxon Neurospora (work supported by an ERC consolidator grant 2015-2020). With this application I propose to complement and expand this work by developing a parallel system exploiting the unique properties of the fungal spore killers in Podospora. Both Neurospora and Podospora display a spore killer phenotype, but exhibit fundamental differences in both function and role in genome evolution. Thus, together these two models will provide a unique and powerful system for unraveling causes and consequences of meiotic drive.
Principal InvestigatorJohannesson, Hanna
Coordinating organisation
Uppsala University
Funder
Period
2016-01-01 － 2019-12-31
National Category
Evolutionary Biology
Identifiers
DiVA, id: project:5672Project, id: 2015-04649_VR

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